It's give and take with them – always has been. Or rather, it was Kyoko that would give and he that would take, when they were children. Shoutaro looks around the empty apartment that they shared, listens to the rush of the city beyond the walls and the stale silence. Everything smells of dust.

When he strokes his fingers along the table in the centre of the room, he leaves dark streaks on the surface. Disgusting.

This whole place is disgusting and he doesn't know why he keeps paying the rent on an apartment that he never spent that much time in anyway. It's pointless. Kyoko doesn't live here anymore. He remembers the gleam in her eyes on that day she walked into the studio unannounced and unwanted.

She's gone for good; disappeared. Shoutaro knows that.

I only took her along to be a servant, he thinks. That's all she was ever good for.

But a part of him, long buried, has gone cold and still since that first night he came back to find her things gone, the apartment empty. After ten years of unrelenting devotion on her part, it still seems bizarre, absurd that she could simply turn her back and walk out on him.

"I only took her along to be a servant," he'd said carelessly that day. Shoutaro had never imagined she would overhear him, much less what her reaction would be. It's thrown him a little, he'll admit it – even if only to himself.

"I'm going to get revenge, Shoutaro Fuwa!"

Even now her voice – dark and malicious and so unlike the little girl who chased his shadow – echoes in the dead space between them. Tokoyo is a huge city and she is gone and even if he wanted to find her, he can't.

He remembers the darkness in her, the terrifying rage he never knew she was capable of and how it had felt almost satisfying at the time. To see her snap and show she was capable of more than blind adoration, no matter how much that adoration had suited him. It got boring after a while and there were always prettier, curvier girls for his thoughts to chase than plain-Jane Kyoko.

Now, alone and away from Shouko's pretty eyes and the feel of her skin beneath his palms, he remembers something else. In that split second before he turned around to see Kyoko standing there, eyes wide, hair tangled over the nape of her neck, he could have sworn he'd heard the sound of something shattering.

notes: seriously. i don't even know where this came from. no one who likes healthy relationships would ship this. notes2: literally started reading Skip Beat! yesterday. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU READ 91 CHAPTERS OF A MANGA IN LESS THAN 24 HOURS. FML.

yeah. I'm going to blame Sara for this, but basically - if you like this enough to fav/alert my stuff, then it's surely worth the time to leave a review. feedback is the only way i can improve as a writer, so...thank's sweets :)

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